An inquiry into the idea of "Affirmation of life" in Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of culture

The notion of culture has been discussed by philosophers since it has begun to be used. Today the critical discussions about culture are to a large extend influenced by Nietzsche's thoughts. Nietzsche positions his life-based critique of culture directed to European culture for the purpose of overcoming the opposition between reasoning and life. The opposition between reasoning and life has appeared when the philosophers tried to achieve the knowledge of the static being behind the existence which flows; and it made the wise person a being in which the instinct of truth and the illusions that protect life conflict. The source of the values that culture which Nietzsche assumed to be decadent base on is that human states himself against the nature and the world and thinks that he is entitled to evaluate the whole existence, including his own existence. Trying to defeat the world, which is assumed to be evil and painful as a conclusion of that kind of an evaluation, through ignoring or chastening is indistinguishable with one's struggle to defeat himself. The modern society, which consists of people who are armed against themselves and the nature, prevents the creative human from arising. Within this context, in this thesis Nietzsche's criticism which faces European culture's life-denying evaluation will be examined and the possibility of the life-affirmative culture in which the gap between reasoning and life will be overcome will be discussed. Nietzsche's ultimate suggestion for the purpose of overcoming decadence is the Dionisian affirmation of life without attacking the origin of the passions. When Nietzsche's critique of culture is approached as part of the idea of "affirmation of life", it reflects both the destructive and reconstructive aspects of his way of philosophising which he calls "to philosophise with a hammer". Keywords: Nietzsche, Culture, Affirmation, Critique, Dionisian, Gay Science, Life.